Well not exactly. The fact is that when you talk about the Montreal Canadiens, the politics of language is often lurking in the background.

How many times have francophone commentators slammed the Habs for not making enough effort to draft francophone players? Last season, when David Desharnais, the only francophone player in the Canadiens’ lineup at the time, went down with an injury, Le Journal de Montréal firebrand Réjean Tremblay penned a furious column saying it was an outrage that the Canadiens were fielding a team without a single francophone.

The issue came up the other day on L’Antichambre, the RDS hockey gab/grumble fest, when the panel was discussing the relative merits of the oft-maligned Desharnais.

Gaston Therrien was talking about how DD was having a pretty good start to the season and he was bemoaning the fact that still Desharnais was getting criticized. That led L’Antichambre host Stéphane Langdeau to suggest that it was mostly the anglo media that was taking it to Desharnais.

Revved up by Langdeau’s comments, Therrien went on to say that Desharnais wouldn’t be getting knocked so hard if his name was Murphy.

I think they’re completely off-base. Desharnais has drawn criticism because, whether your name is Taylor or Tremblay, you know full well that Desharnais isn’t a first-line NHL centre. Those of us who have criticized Desharnais were simply pointing out the obvious and the smarter critics realized it was really team management that deserved to be slammed for using him as a first-line centre. It’s not DD’s fault that they put him in that position rather than where he should be, which is on the third line.

But the fact that Habs talk so often becomes part of that bigger discussion in Quebec is only natural. Don’t forget that the Canadiens were founded in 1909 by an English-Canadian businessman specifically to appeal to francophone Montrealers and to create a rivalry with the more anglo Montreal Wanderers.

Until the mid ’90s, Montreal always had a good chuck of francophone players and many of the greatest heroes of those teams — from Maurice Richard to Jean Beliveau to Guy Lafleur to Patrick Roy — were French Quebecers. The wrinkle is that over its history, this team built for French Quebec became embraced by anglos and francos pretty well in equal measure.

Remember the ’70s? You know, the era when the team used to win the Cup pretty well ever year — and we talked about the Flying Frenchmen, referring to stars like The Flower, Jacques Lemaire, Béliveau, etc. And we all loved le bleu-blanc-et-rouge. Well almost all of us.

There were some anglos not on the bandwagon and I’ve always felt there’s a minority English subculture here that supported the Bruins back then – and even now – in part because they felt alienated from the majority franco culture here.

It only makes sense that folks on different sides of the linguistic divide see our team through different lenses. Think back to the whole issue of Saku Koivu not ever speaking a word of French in public. Now for many francophones, that was seen as insulting. They felt that a guy who was captain of the Canadiens for all those years should’ve at least made a small effort to speak to the team’s fans in their language.

But most anglophones thought that was absurd, that Koivu is here to play hockey, period. I happen to agree with the critics of Koivu and think he should’ve at least pulled out a “bonjour” or two over the years. But those who know me know I often beg to differ with the mainstream anglo sentiments ‘round these parts.

There’s a similar divide between the two communities when it comes to the question of whether the coach needs to be a francophone. When that apocalyptic controversy exploded following the appointment of the unilingual anglo Randy Cunneyworth as “interim” coach in 2011, most anglos didn’t see what all the fuss was about. Meanwhile the Quebec Minister of Culture was calling on the team to fix the problem immediately and others were threatening to boycott Molson products in protest. The gap between the two points of view couldn’t have been any wider.

We have different perspectives on so many things — from education funding to philanthropy — that it’s only natural we both look at the Canadiens and see different things. Anglos see an underperforming first-line centre who can’t score on the power play and francophones see a French underdog being sniped at by anglophones.

The interesting thing is that the team is owned by a group headed by an anglophone, Geoff Molson, who is ultra-sensitive to these language skirmishes. He promised, in the thick of the Cunneyworth debacle, that the next coach would be bilingual and Molson hired a general manager, Marc Bergevin, who is also keenly aware of the franco roots of the organization.

One of the first things Bergevin did when he arrived was to bring in a slew of francophone coaches, both for the big team and the farm team (in Hamilton at the time).

In a fascinating interview with La Presse columnist Philippe Cantin in October 2014, Bergevin talked about how important that francophone heritage was for him and for the team.

“We have damn good hockey people in Quebec,” Bergevin told Cantin. “All things being equal, I’ll always pick the francophone. We go on the road and people say, ‘Hey, les Canadiens speak French!’… That’s something to be proud of.”

And I think that’s great. The Canadiens should be proud of their roots in French Quebec and I love the irony that it’s an owner from one of the most famous English-Montreal families who’s bringing that franco pride back to the Habs.

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